This invention relates to fire escape installations in buildings.
The invention has particular, but not exclusive, reference to fire escape installations in hospitals and homes for the elderly in which the occupants are bed-ridden. Such buildings present an acute fire hazard, since in the event of a fire it is difficult to evacuate the occupants safely and quickly, even if adequate numbers of staff and firemen are at hand to move individual patients. The problem is aggravated in certain hospital wards where individual patients may be connected to surgical instruments or appliances so that they cannot quickly be moved from their beds without risk of injury.
An object of the present invention is to provide an economically practical solution to this problem. The essential concept of this invention as applied to hospitals and like buildings is to provide for the removal of a bed, with its occupant, from the confines of a building in the event of a fire. The bed is positioned adjacent an external wall of the building, and in the event of a fire being detected a movable section of the external wall is released to provide an aperture through which the bed moves, preferably by gravity-assistance, to a safe position on the outside of the building, where the occupant of the bed can easily be rescued.
In practice the removal of the bed from the building in the event of a fire should preferably take place automatically when the adjoining wall section is released, without requiring manual operation or motive power, neither of which may be available.